High Risk

Recent Performance — Last 5 Sessions

How to read this table: Daily = the change from the row above. †Tuesday, Oct 27 was never published, so that row is Tuesday’s official close ($1,440.89), and Oct 28 is measured from it (+0.5%). Correction: our Oct 28 page showed a 10/27 row of $1,427, which matched neither a mark nor a close; it is replaced here. That page’s +7.9% for Oct 28 was measured from our Oct 26 mark across two sessions. Today = vs our Oct 28 mark ($1,448.75). That mark was published to the website on Wednesday but never emailed or texted, and Thursday, October 29 was not published at all. So measured against Friday Oct 23’s $1,383.67 — the last figure that actually reached you — the book is -7.4%. Live marks (Fri, 7:36 MDT, six minutes after the open, 9:36 Eastern); the daily move is measured against our Oct 28 (Wednesday) published mark, the most recent mark we published anywhere. Our last published mark was taken Wednesday at 9:34 Eastern, and Thursday’s official close of $1,442.57 landed 0.43% below it, so on the close basis today is -11.2%. October MTD is measured from Wednesday Sep 30’s official month-end close ($1,733.06). Today is the last trading day of October; the month locks at today’s official close and is reported with Monday’s letter. Sessions before Jul 14 reflect the prior book; the current holdings were established at the Jul 14 open.

Baseline note — Three numbers today, and the reason is our failure rather than the market’s. Four sessions in a row failed to reach you by email or text. Monday, October 26 and Wednesday, October 28 reached the website only. Tuesday, October 27 and Thursday, October 29 were not published at all — no letter, no page, nothing. So the last figure that actually reached you is still Friday Oct 23’s — three bases today, and all three print. Worst first, ordered by the numbers themselves. Measured from our own Oct 28 published mark of $1,448.75 it is -11.6%. Measured from Thursday’s official close of $1,442.57 — the basis your own brokerage screen uses — it is -11.2%. Measured against the $1,383.67 you were last actually sent, on Friday Oct 23, it is -7.4%. October is -26.1% and the year -21.7%. September is locked closed in the monthly table at +19.50%. The 2026 YTD figure uses an estimated year-start base of about $1,637 a unit and is under review.

Position Scoreboard — Sorted by Portfolio Weight

Today = vs our Oct 28 mark, with the vs-Thursday’s-close reading beneath it. Since Fill = vs SOXL $179.62 / TQQQ $75.19 / MSTR $94.78 / BE $205.15 / NBIS $172.19. Weight = % of unit. Live marks (Fri, 7:36 MDT, six minutes after the open, 9:36 Eastern); the daily move is measured against our Oct 28 (Wednesday) published mark, the most recent mark we published anywhere. Friday Oct 23 remains the last mark emailed and texted. Both readings are printed, for the book and for every position. Where they differ, the close-basis figure is the one your own statement is measured from.

Portfolio Allocation by Category

Live Track Record — Since January 22, 2026 (Actual)

▲ Current month through today; July, August and September 2026 are locked closed; return measured from the Jan 22, 2026 entry. * Jan–Mar 2026 are estimated partial-period returns carried from our May 2026 updates; they predate our daily archive (begins 15 April 2026) and are shown as estimates, not as-published daily marks. Apr–Sep cells are locked closed from official month-end closes; close-basis restatement pending the anchor review. No backtests, no hypotheticals. Units are price-return; dividends are not accrued.

Calculate Your Position Size

High Risk is marked at $1,281 on the current whole-share model, and this is a bad morning, so the numbers come first and worst first. Against our own Oct 28 published mark of $1,448.75 the book is -11.6%. Against Thursday’s official close of $1,442.57 — one ordinary session, and the basis your screen uses — it is -11.2%. Against the $1,383.67 you were last actually sent, on Friday Oct 23, it is -7.4%. The book is now below the last number you hold. October is -26.1% month to date and the year is -21.7%.

Before the reasons, the thing we owe you. You have not had a letter from us since Friday, October 23. Monday Oct 26 and Wednesday Oct 28 reached the website and went no further; Tuesday Oct 27 and Thursday Oct 29 produced nothing at all. That is four sessions of silence by email and text in one of the hardest weeks this book has had, and it is our failure, not the market’s. It is also why there are three comparisons above instead of one. Unlike Wednesday, they are close together today: almost all of the damage happened this morning, and only 0.43% of it happened between our Wednesday mark and Thursday’s close.

Two things hit at once, and this book owns both of them. The first is bitcoin. Binance reported Thursday evening that it had been hit by a hack of about $6.3bn — the largest crypto theft on record — and said it had frozen about $3bn; the FBI and the Secret Service are working with it. Bitcoin is about $77,131 as we mark, down 3.6% over 24 hours and down from about $80,612 at our Wednesday mark. The second is Strategy itself, which reported third-quarter results after Thursday’s close. Revenue was $125.4m, down 3% from a year earlier and below what analysts expected, and the company announced the unexpected departure of its chief financial officer. On the call, Michael Saylor argued the company does not need bitcoin or new equity to do the “heavy lifting”. The market is not taking that on trust this morning. MSTR is -10.7% against our Wednesday mark, -11.9% against Thursday’s close, and at 39% of the unit it costs the book -4.12 percentage points against our Wednesday mark. Hold it at our Wednesday mark and leave everything else alone, and High Risk would read -7.4% instead of -11.6%.

We said on Wednesday that the cushion under this position was thinning, and it is thinner now. On the figures Strategy carried into the report — 848,517 bitcoin at an average cost near $75,446 — bitcoin at $77,131 puts the holding roughly 2% above cost, against about 7% on Wednesday. We have not yet confirmed whether the third-quarter report changes those holdings, and we will not guess at it. What we will say plainly: that cushion is the thing to watch, and it is closer to zero than it has been for most of this year. MSTR is still +31.7% since our July fill, which is the only reason it is not the worst line in the table.

The rest is chips. Intel gave weak guidance on Thursday, citing soft PC demand and a setback from an explosion at one of its fabs, and it pulled the whole group with it. At our mark AMD is -9.7%, the iShares semiconductor ETF -6.8%, Micron -4.6%, Broadcom -4.5% and TSMC -3.8%. Samsung’s profit miss on Thursday had already put memory on the back foot, and Korea’s KOSPI fell more than 5%. Amazon is -4.4% after its own results, and Microsoft and Alphabet both reported lighter capital spending than expected earlier in the week. The Nasdaq-100 ETF is -2.9% and the S&P 500 ETF -1.25% as we mark, and the Nasdaq-100 is on track for its first monthly loss since July. On a triple-leveraged fund that becomes SOXL -21.7% against our Wednesday mark, -20.5% against Thursday’s close, costing -3.11 points against our mark, and TQQQ -12.2% against our Wednesday mark, -8.9% against Thursday’s close, costing -2.41. SOXL is now below where it stood at our Monday Oct 26 mark, so the chip rally we wrote about on Wednesday has been fully given back.

Position by position, both bases, worst first against our Wednesday mark (the headline basis; point costs are on that basis too and add up to the -11.6%). SOXL is -21.7% against our Wednesday mark, -20.5% against Thursday’s close, -3.11 points. TQQQ is -12.2% against our Wednesday mark, -8.9% against Thursday’s close, -2.41 points. MSTR is -10.7% against our Wednesday mark, -11.9% against Thursday’s close, -4.12 points. NBIS is -7.4% against our Wednesday mark, -7.7% against Thursday’s close, -0.87 points. BE is -6.8% against our Wednesday mark, -6.3% against Thursday’s close, -1.05 points, and is still +1.5% since our fill. All five positions are lower on both bases; nothing in this book is offsetting anything else today, which is what a concentrated, leveraged book does on a day like this. One correction to our own record: on Wednesday we told you Nebius had not confirmed a reporting date. It now has. Nebius will report third-quarter results on Thursday, November 12, before the market opens. That replaces the November 10 estimate we had been quoting from data vendors.

Bottom line: High Risk is at $1,281 a unit, -11.6% against our Oct 28 mark, -11.2% against Thursday’s official close, and -7.4% against the Oct 23 figure you last received. October is -26.1% with one session left, and the year is -21.7%. We are going to say the hard part directly. If October closes anywhere near here, it will be the worst month in our published table: the previous worst were February 2025 at -23% and July this year at -22%. We checked that against every month in the table rather than asserting it. October locks at today’s official close and we will report the final figure with Monday’s letter. Nothing was traded and nothing is proposed today; every position is held unchanged. What we are watching: where bitcoin settles after the Binance hack and how far it sits above Strategy’s cost; anything further on Strategy’s finance leadership; Apple’s results after Monday’s close; the midterm elections on November 3; the MSCI affected-company list on November 11, where any exclusion takes effect after the close on November 30; and Nebius on November 12.

Portfolio Builder | Market Update | Friday, October 30, 2026

Trade Ledger — Entry & Exit History

Every position we open and close, newest first. Realized P/L on closes is marked against the original entry price.

Entry prices verified against the Jan 22, 2026 cost basis. “Open” = still held today. An entry marked “Closed <date>” was exited in that rotation — its realized result is shown on the CLOSE row for that date. This ledger builds our public track record going forward.